Backyard kitten update...

Mama cat with 3 black and white kittens

This is one of our feral mama cats with her 3 kittens.  She has pretty much taken over the backyard, bringing her kits there to eat, sleep, and play several times a day.  They are getting big... probably about 8-10 weeks old now.

There is another little black mama with beautiful yellow eyes that has only 1 black kitten... or at least we only see one come by with her at a time. Lately she leaves him in the yard for a bit and he's on his own... for this reason DH has started calling him the Little Lone Ranger.  He is a pretty brave little guy.  He'll walk up to the french doors and look in.... see our inside cats and try to interact with them.

And then there's Bootsie who has yet to take her kits to the backyard.  She stays on the side of the house with them (2 blacks and one black and white like herself).  They are a bit younger - maybe 5 or 6 weeks old.  She will come eat in the back with the others, but so far has not brought the kits with her. Last year we absconded with her kittens to the Animal Shelter for adoption... and perhaps she is trying to avoid this happening again.

Recent visitors to our yard...

young possum

fat squirrel

young black feral cat

I know that I haven't been to this site in a long while, but decided to update it a bit. The possum in the top pic comes by in the evening to eat from the feral cat dishes.  He is a young one... and kind of cute, don't you think?  The squirrel is one of our fat squirrels that eat more from this feeder than the birds. We do put out a lot of apple peel and peanut butter and they seem to like this. This young black feral spends a lot of time in this tree which upsets the squirrels and the birds... but he's yet to catch either.

Neglected blog... but no neglected kiddies

Realized today that I've definitely neglected this blog in favor of "Older but better...?" where I tend to lump all my interests together since retirement. Cats and other critters still show up on that blog, but they are lumped in with cooking, pottery, quilting, etc. 

Let's see if I can catch up here.  One of the last entries here on this site was about Rose, our then 22 year old cat. We had almost lost her at that time, but she had rallied. However, we did lose her in November of 2016 when she had a grand mal seizure. This story can be found here under the title, "In Memory of Rose".

Once we were 8, then 7, then 5, and now 3...

Julie, Tux, and Ghost

Since then the cat population in our house-hold has remained at 3. Tux and his sister, Julie, are both 14. Ghost is 10. We are determined to remain at this number - and even at this rate, there is a chance that these 3 will outlive us. But it is a difficult task to remain at 3 when so many cats and kittens need homes. 

The feral cats outside come and go, but some seem to make this their permanent sanctuary - which is fine with us. Pretty Boy - who is a long haired black - has taken over the front porch and grounds. Although he may roam the neighborhood on some days, mostly he can be found sleeping in his basket on the porch or lying on one of the outside windowsills.

Pretty Boy

In the back we have a half grown kitten that is constantly trying his best to be friends with one of the grown cats (Square Ear). Square Ear is a loner who has had part of one ear bitten off and although he isn't aggressive to the kitten, mostly shrugs him off. 

And so life goes on and the feral cats, box turtles, raccoons, possums, and occasional coyote or bobcat come and go, we watch with amusement at their antics and are glad to provide a place with water, food, and sanctuary as the need arises.

I've often told DH that we should have started a genetics log when we first moved in as we have been here for 32 years and have watched generations of feral cats (as well as other species) come and go. The 8 cats that did come inside to share our lives were either rescues or ferals... and have always made loving additions to our family.

Kittens!

feral mama and kittens

You know, it's hard to ever be upset about kittens showing up in your yard. They are so darn cute! But of course when one tries to keep down the general feral population, it's a bit upsetting when all of a sudden the mamas show up with 2-5 kittens each. 

When DH and I were younger, we'd try to catch the kittens born in our yard when they were at a catchable age (3-4 weeks). At this age, they wobbly-walked and couldn't run too fast (3 of the cats we have inside now were caught like this about 12 years ago).

Over the years we've continued to take the kittens we could catch to the adoption room at our nearby shelter and this way they were adopted and no longer on the streets. And when we could catch the mama, we'd have her spayed, vaccinated, and returned to the street.

Now that we are older, the feral mamas seem to have caught on, as they now have their babies in another yard, but continue to bring them to our yard after they are about 6 weeks old... definitely too old to catch... fast little buggers! But they are adorable. 

At the moment, we have 3 mamas with their kittens. Backyard mama has 4, Sideyard mama has 5, and front yard mama that just showed up yesterday has 2. 

It's hard to know what to do. We certainly can't catch them. And if we call "Animal Control", they will set out hav-a-hart traps and catch raccoons, possums, and skunks (have done this before)... but no kittens.

What probably will happen is that some will stay and some will go off with their mama on what we call "walk-abouts" and not come back. They have 'moved on'.  The ones that hang around will eventually go off on their own as they become adults. 

And even some of these return years later on occasion to come by and spend a night or two in the yard. It's always comforting to see one of the ones that were kittens here return later as an adult. Good to know that they survived and have not forgotten where they spent some of their kitten days. 

-

An update on Rose

Rose when a bit younger

I've mentioned before that Rose is now 22... and thinner, weaker, and more mellow than she was at a younger age. We almost lost her about 6-8 weeks ago. But she has rallied like a trooper... and is almost acting like her old self again (which is feisty!).

She has done so well that this past week we decided to bite the bullet and take her to the Vet to have some mats shaved off. At her age, she is not so meticulous about her grooming... and has mats around her rear. We have tried everything at home to remove them ourselves (even buying different types of de-matting razors) but she will have none of it. And we didn't think she could handle being anesthetized (which they have had to do in the past to get the job done).

So... after talking to the Vet and the Tech, they decided to muzzle her and try to do it without anesthesia. I was also afraid that if she got too upset, it would cause her heart to give out, but they promised me that if she showed any signs of mouth breathing, they would immediately stop.

Well, they did get it done! But she was definitely NOT a happy camper. You could hear her protests all over the Veterinary clinic... and she can be LOUD!  But no one got bit,  the job was done ... and best of all, she survived the ordeal!  

She is home now and has actually resumed her grooming as we keep finding little tuffs of white hair everywhere. So we're guessing that she is feeling better and doing her best not to have to ever go through that again. 

Life is good.

Rose has one... you're allowed a limited amount of petting

Brownie bark recipe...

Here's the Brownie Bark Recipe I mentioned in my previous post:

Brownie Bark  
(I add 1/2 tsp of espresso powder to dry ingredients - gives it a little 'bite')

Enjoy!

long overdue update...

Sad faced Tux

It occurred to me recently that I've ignored this site to write mostly on my "Older but better" site. Well, I decided to post some pics here that relate more to just Cats, Coffee, and Chocolate. This is a picture of Tux as he likes to sit with his head resting on the end table...

These next 2 signs I like:

 What a good way to think about retirement!

What would we do without coffee? I would have the world's worst headache. The few times I've had to stop drinking coffee, I get that 'lack of caffeine' headache. I know that caffeine is basically a drug... one that we become addicted to at a young age. But if coffee actually bad for you? From what I've read, no. In fact it seems that the consensus of medical opinions is that 1-2 cups of coffee a day is actually good for you. I sure hope so.

Brownie Bark

And this Brownie Bark is my newest chocolate craze!  It's an easy recipe and definitely delicious and addictive...

With cats, coffee, and chocolate in mind -

Happy Valentine's Everyone!

a tale of 4 kittens...

Skita (previously Termite)

This is the story of 4 kitties... 4 little black ferals.  The first one lives in the backyard with his skinny mama. He is the one outside survivor of a litter of 6. DH and I took the others to the Adoption Room at our local Animal Shelter. We left this one (the runt) with his mama. We originally called him Termite, but now call him Skita as he's no bigger than a mosquito... and although about 3 months old... is still tiny and somewhat shaky when he walks. DH and I don't think he'll ever be normal, but we're giving him a chance. His mama watches him very closely and is never far away.

Having an AMT background, I've done a little research and believe that he may have a mild case of Cerebellar Hypoplasia, which is a bit similar to Cerebral Palsy in humans.His walk is shaky, his head bobs, and he occasionally falls over. Otherwise, he eats, sleeps, and plays like any other kitten.

There's another half grown female in the yard who's mother and sibling took off and left her when she was about 6 weeks old. She has attached herself to skinny mama and Skita... and acts like an adopted older sister keeping an eye on Skita when skinny mama isn't around. DH and I call her Aunt Polly.

Then there's another black mama who showed up with 2 little black kittens about 6-7 weeks old. We call them 'the twins'. One is always running around the back yard on his own. The other sticks close to his mama and seems to be afraid of his own shadow.

And then.... there's "the wanderer" in the side yard. He's a little ball of black fluff. His mama leaves him a lot and he never stays where she left him. He wanders about and cries. But he's very brave and has no fear of other cats.

Occasionally all 4 kittens are in the back at the same time and will play together. Today was one of those days. I tried to use my iPhone and get a video of them playing. In it if you look closely, you can see how shaky Skita is.  It starts off with Skita...

Termite meets turtle...

We have a very small feral kitten that lives with his mom in our back yard. We call her "skinny mama" as she is very thin... although she eats well. She is also an excellent mama and takes very good care of this kitten... who is also very small for his/her age. We think he or she is about 8 weeks.

Anyway, I was washing dishes at the sink and happened to look out the window. Termite (tiny kitten) was sneaking up on a good sized box turtle that was eating from the cat food bowls. I immediately grabbed my camera and shot a few pics.

As you can see, Termite was hiding in the grass as the turtle approached. However, in the last 2 shots, he heard my camera and turned to look...

Update on recent feral kittens

If you'd like an update on the recent feral kittens,

go here under "kittens and tea".

a new litter...

new feral kittens

I know it's hard to see them, but we found this new litter of feral kittens on the side of the house a few days ago. If you look hard, you can see... maybe 4 black ones and 1 little gray.  The mama is a tiny little black feral. She takes off when we get close, but always returns.

We will keep an eye on them and hopefully take them in at about 4 weeks old... (old enough to start eating on their own). At this time we will bring them over to the Adoption Room at our no kill shelter. If we can catch mama, we will bring her in too... to be spayed.

kittens...

one of the outside feral kittens

This is one of our outside feral kittens. DH calls him "Rolly Polly" as he is a fat little thing. 

and this little one showed up in our front yard about a week ago with his black mother and another black sibling.  We were amazed as all the feral kittens that have shown up for the last several years have been either solid black or black and white. And if you remember the story of Sam, the Siamese male that has been around for years, this one may actually be his legacy. However, she and the kittens disappeared during the bad weather and we haven't seen them since.

Outside... and inside critters

outside feral cat and coon

tapped on window to get his attention

one of theoutside feral kittens

and then there's Ghost...

Ghost watching me read in bed at night

Some nights DH goes to bed at 10 pm and I stay up to watch the 10 o'clock news. Rose and Ghost are usually in bed by this time. Rose will settle in, but Ghost will wait up for me. She knows I read for a while and likes to share in that activity (?). 

Julie... the counter cat

Julie on counter

Julie is our *counter cat*.  As hard as we've tried to keep her off... she persists. If you spray her with water, she will leave (for the moment), if you manually take her down, she will jump right back, and if you lock her in another room, the minute she gets out she runs back to the counter. We've given up. I keep the counters covered with kitchen towels or small quilts. And of course I wipe it down with lysol continuously and use those plastic chopping boards whenever we put food up there.

The other cats are not so inclined. One prefers his own cat basket (Tux) or my lap. One prefers DH's chair (Ghost), one prefers the sofa(Molly), and one prefers our bed (Rose). Of course if there is a *sunspot* somewhere in one of the windows, they will all vie for that.  And in winter, they all go for the rug in front of the Aga.

I haven't posted on this site in a while.... mainly I post on "Older, but better...?" and recently I started a new blog called, "My Mulberry days...". But since cats, coffee, and chocolate are still my main vices, I thought I should update this site occasionally.

beautiful black ferals... and spoiled inside fur-babies

one of our handsome black feral cats in basket on back porch

It's been a while since I've posted on this blog, but with all this cold weather here in Texas I decided that this picture of one of our ferals with his winter coat was appropriate.  Isn't he a handsome fella?

Cardinal in our birdfeeder outside window in snow

And I posted this picture on my other site (Older, but better...?), but if you missed it, here it is again. This cardinal and his mate visit this feeder often. 

As for my inside lazy spoiled fur-babies, here's a picture of them and how they spend their days in the winter.

Have a good week and try to stay warm!

a long overdue update...

Shiney's kittens June 2014

It's a shame that I don't blog here about the critters more often.  Seems like I've gotten so used to posting everything on my "Older but Better" site, that I've come to neglect the others. Well, there are more pictures of kittens on that site, so if you'd like to see them, just click over.

When I originally switched from writing on my website to blogging, I planned to separate things a bit better. "Older but Better" was going to contain writings more directly connected to retirement... in general and specifically. "Cats, Coffee, and Chocolate" would contain writings about our cats and other outside critters, as well as my two vices, coffee and dark chocolate. And then "Simple Things" would just be favorite photos that I wanted to share. 

But I guess life doesn't like being divided up into neat cubicles.  It all runs together and this is seems to be what has happened here. Well, it can't be helped. But I will update you a bit on these kittens. The mama took them off for a jaunt today.  They have spent most of the day playing underneath DH's truck that is parked in the driveway (behind a closed gate). We don't use the truck a lot... only when both of us have commitments at the same time (which doesn't happen too often). Actually the truck has been gone for most of the last 6 months.  One or the other of our sons had borrowed it when their own cars were giving them trouble. It only came home to roast last week. 

OK, that's my contribution to this blog for today. I've got a Chicken Broccoli quiche in the oven that's about ready to come out. So I'll bid you folks good day!

Ghost video... and Jack's tale

It's been a while since I've posted here.  I've taken to posting even cat related info on my other blog, "Older... but better".  But I thought I'd just update this site today with a video of Ghost.

I started this a few days ago, but didn't get back to it for many reasons. We were out of town for a few days and there's always so much 'catch up' when home again.  But the biggest reason is that Jack hasn't been doing too well.  Those of you who have followed my blog, know that he was diagnosed with some form of Feline Leukemia when he was 4.  He was one of 5 siblings that we took in when their feral mama basically dropped them off in our back yard at 3 weeks old.  This is how our previously 3 cat house-hold made the giant jump in numbers.

Our grand daughter (who was 3 at the time) took Coco home and our oldest son took 2 females.  We kept Jack and Tux.  As the years passed, one of the little females (Julie) came back to us when son remarried and she didn't get along with new wife's dogs. Anyway, when Jack was diagnosed, we had them all tested. All were negative, but Jack. Since we've never let any of them go outside and had had them all tested before bringing them in as kittens, we were mystified.  The only answer seems to be that he inherited it from his feral mama and it didn't show up until he was 4. Over the years, he has had episodes where his blood count would drop dramatically and  he would turn yellow. The Vet would put him on fluids and Preds, and he always rallied.  There have been several times that they mentioned putting him down... but we never seriously considered it since his eyes were bright, his coat shiny, and his appetite good.... and except for these infrequent episodes, he did fine. It was not time.

Jack is 10 now.  Yesterday he was having a lot of trouble walking.  He has had a wonky walk for a few months, has lost weight, and seems to remain yellow these days.  We didn't take him in earlier because there really isn't much they can do and we didn't want to have to consider putting him down again. But this week when he was having real difficulty walking, we were afraid that he was suffering.  We don't want him to suffer... especially because we are selfish and want to keep him with us. So we took him in.

Basically they didn't tell us anything we didn't know, but did help us to try something that may make him more comfortable.  He is in liver failure. And the Preds have probably caused the loss of muscle tone in his hind legs  - but that was the price paid to keep him going these last six years. They doubted the Preds were doing much more at this point and perhaps by cutting him back some, it might stop further loss.  They asked if we'd talked about putting him down and we told them that we have, but we weren't sure if it was time yet. The Vet said that if we weren't sure, then it wasn't time.  But we have to address the possibility that the inevitable is nearing.

Jack

We have kittens...

Again...

We have kittens in our yard or in our house or both almost every Spring and Fall.  And we were aware that some of the outside ferals must be nursing kittens, but as of this week, we hadn't seen any. Then... DH was weed-wacking on the side of the house Sunday when out popped a very scared little black kitten. DH immediately picked him up and brought him inside. My first thought was, "oh no..." then, "he's so-oo cute".  As I settled him in, DH went out and checked the area he was in and pretty soon came in with another.  Then I thought, "oh...oh".  This is how we got the 6 cats we have now.  We had always kept the number at 3... then a feral had 5 kittens in our yard (our 3 black and whites are part of that original 5). But there were no more (at least so far).

They are both black, one medium hair, one long hair... about 5 weeks old and fairly chubby.  So their mama was taking good care of them. Actually it is a bit sad as she is still out there looking for them and crying.  We were tempted to put them back but decided they would have a much better chance in life getting adopted into a good home then living outside with the other ferals. But mama is sad... and it hurts. We actually brought them out in a crate today and put them where she could find them and she layed down by the crate with them... even sniffing their little paws as they pushed them through the bars. DH says that it's too hard on her to do this, but I thought she needed to know that they were alright and that they just didn't disappear.

Oh... and this is an update from yesterday evening.  We now see 2 more black kittens in the front yard by the bay window and as of about 7pm last night, we see 3 more little black and white kittens frolicking on the windowsill in the den!! It's like, "OMG, is it 'coming out' day! They all look to be about 6-8 weeks old... a little older than the ones we took inside and moving a lot faster.

I will try to get some pictures, but we may not be able to catch these.

cats and boxes...

Tux (left) and Jack (right) sharing new box

When the postman makes a delivery to our house, the cats are waiting anxiously... for the box. They definitely believe that each delivery is a gift for them. This last box contained our k-cups for our Keurig coffee maker. They totally ignore the contents and can't wait for us to empty it and deliver to them their new cardboard abode.  It seems that the first one in has *dibs*... but Jack is always willing to share.  At the moment, they now have 4 boxes in various areas around the house. People who don't have cats probably wouldn't understand, but those who do... do.

Molly

Molly is 19 years old.  She spends a lot of time sleeping on the sofa or in her bed these days.  But she still eats well, uses her litter box fastidiously, and gets around pretty well. She lost her buddy, 19 year old Thibbadeaux , not that long ago. She and Thibs came to us as kittens at about the same time. Thibs came to us from our oldest son's cat's litter (who gave birth under the upstairs desk in our house) and Molly was found outside an apartment building by our youngest son (and promptly dumped at mom and dad's house when we weren't home).  And you wonder why we have 6 cats? 

Be that as it may, the two of them were fast buddies and have lived their whole lives together.  Molly has put up with all the other cats and kittens that have come into the house over the years... sometimes grudgingly, but never mean. She does hiss at the outside cats and raccoons when they gather by the back door - as if to say, "there's no room in here! Go away!" But all in all, she's been a good loving cat.  I expect we'll have her around for a few more years unless something unforseen happens.  I believe I read somewhere that 19 is equivalent to about 93.

From left: Ghost, Jack, Rose, Julie, and Tux

Julie drinking from faucet in bar

Ghost cuddling with toy bird

Jack and Tux sacked out by fireplace

multiple cats...

I recently received an email from a Julia Woods in the UK (Buckinghamshire) asking permission to use my "7 cats in a bed" photo on a brochure for a Feliway product. Since I was not familiar with the product, I did some checking online and with my Veterinarian's office and was assured that they were familiar with it, it was a good product, and they even carried it at their clinic.  

So I sent off the picture (and these 2 others) to Julia explaining why I hesitated, but that I was happy to let them use my pictures as long as they realized that I wasn't endorsing the product because I myself have never used it.  As you can see from my photos, there was never a need.  My cats get along fine. But hey, if it helps other cats to get along...